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Udaya Kumar: the man behind the new Rupee symbol

The symbol has been designed by Dharmalingam Udaya Kumar (31), an IIT Bombay post-graduate, who has just joined as a teacher at IIT Guwahati. Kumar will receive a prize money of Rs 2.5 lakh for his efforts.

Kumar’s symbol was chosen after a public competition among resident Indian citizens.

Over 3,000 entries were received. These were evaluated by a jury headed by the RBI deputy governor , which included experts from reputed art and design institutes.

“The entries were presented to the jury in such a manner that the identity of the competitors was not revealed to the jury members. The jury selected five final entries and also gave its evaluation of these five entries to the government,” said I&B minister Ambika Soni.

Kumar’s symbol is an amalgam of the Devanagari ‘Ra’ and the Roman capital ‘R’ without the stem.

Born in Chennai on 10 October, 1978, Kumar’s family hails from Thanjavur. He studied architecture, which he pursued at Anna University in Chennai. Subsequently, he did his Masters in Architecture from IIT, Mumbai.

When the industrial design centre in the campus started offering a PhD, Kumar enrolled, and started work on the evolution of the Tamil script. The 31-year-old bachelor has also worked as a senior designer for two years with publisher Infomedia.

How to download the Rupee symbol

You may have to wait for at least one year before you get keyboards for your computers with the new Rupee symbol. That’s what the Government of India says. The Union Cabinet cleared the symbol on July 15.

But for people who can’t wait to start using the symbol, here’s some good news. A newly created font can help you type the character of the new rupee symbol immediately.

Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd, a Mangalore-based firm, has created a new font called the Rupee_Foradian, which can be downloaded from the company’s site – Download the symbol here .

The firm has also put in a slide show on the site to help users download the symbol, and the move has generated amazing results with the tiral version being loaded about 1,100 times with the first hour of its launch. The company made available the full version, free, as soon as the hits crossed 5,000.